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23 July 2022
Neviʾim, Hebrew for "prophets", is a term for a section of the Hebrew Bible which includes eight books: four of what readers might call "historical books", and four more classically "prophetic books": Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and The Twelve. Because of the clear differences between the first four and the second four, the traditional Hebrew canon distinguishes them as the Neviʾim Rishonim, ("Former Prophets") and the Neviʾim Aḥaronim ("Latter Prophets"). The Former Prophets are what a modern reader might call 'historical' books, while the Latter Prophets are focused on individual prophets and their words.
If we treat the Neviʾim as two sections, then there are four sections to the Hebrew Bible: the Pentateuch, the Former Prophets, the Latter Prophets, and the Ketuvim. The first two make up what is sometimes called the Primary History, a sort of narrative backbone of the Hebrew Bible. The second half, the Latter Prophets and the Ketuvim, consist of everything else, and do not have the sort of linear progression found in the Primary History.
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